What picture does Alphonse Allais not have. The story of "Battles of Negroes in a dark cave in the dead of night

Alphonse Alle.

It's getting closer to night. The feast is in full swing.

Merry friends got excited, they are noisy and overflowing with tender feelings.

Pretty women, in unbuttoned clothes, tend to humility. Their eyes slowly close, and their mouths, parted, reveal wet treasures - purple and mother-of-pearl.

Glasses keep filling up, emptying every now and then! Songs are heard, echoed by the clinking of glass and the bursting female laughter.

And then all of a sudden the old clock in the dining room breaks its monotonous ticking and creaking to screech like it always does when it's about to strike. Midnight.

Twelve blows are heard - measured, significant, solemn, endowed with that special reproach that is inherent in an old family clock. They seem to tell you that many blows have been thrown by them for your disappeared ancestors and many more blows will have to be struck for your grandchildren when you are gone.

Cheerful friends involuntarily quieted down, and the beauties no longer laughed.

But Alberic, the most indefatigable of all, raised his glass and said with buffoonish gravity:

Gentlemen, it's midnight. It's time to question the existence of God.

"Knock-Knock!"

Who's there? We are not waiting for anyone, and the servants have gone to bed.

"Knock-Knock!"

The door opens and they see a long silver beard of a tall old man in flowing white robes.

Who are you, dear man? And the old man answered simply:

At this statement, the young people felt a little bewildered, but Alberic, who possessed a truly enviable composure, spoke again:

I hope if you clink glasses with us here, it won't hurt you?

God took the glass offered by the young man, and immediately all awkwardness disappeared.

Again they began to drink, laugh, sing songs.

The blue morning light had already caused the stars to go out when it was finally decided that it was time to disperse.

Before saying goodbye to the hosts, the god, with absolutely inimitable courtesy, admitted that he did not exist.

And what do you think of a merciful God, dear Monsieur Benevol Mansue, of a merciful God?

The question has not yet been answered, and we have become witnesses of the most unexpected of the spectacles engraved in our memory.

M. Benevol Mansue's meek eyes, which had previously shone with benevolence, suddenly lit up with a gleam of hatred.

A terrible grimace distorted our friend's lips, always ready to smile affably, and immediately a nervous trembling ran over his well-groomed hands, like those of a virtuous priest.

Merciful god,” he turned purple, “merciful god. Oh yeah! He is good, your merciful God! .. Merciful Lord, this is after all ...

Here followed a word, which we, not wanting in any way, even indirectly, to offend the religious convictions of a certain part of our readers, hastened to remove.

Frightened by his own insolence, Monsieur Benevol Mansue quickly regained control of himself and, ashamed of his vehemence, began to apologize:

But please forgive me, I would be in despair ... And his whole physiognomy expressed suffering because he could deliver even a minor nuisance to one of those present.

You don't have to repent of anything, my dear Benevil, you have nothing to reproach yourself with. There is not one among us who does not profess, as a religion, the most consistent dymysticism.

And what's more, Jules emphasized, our "out-dymysticism" is marked by features of the most bitter intolerance. If not only a Catholic, a Christian, or a person professing any kind of religious dogma, but if even a shadow of spiritualism dared to penetrate here, you know, it would be met by a volley from a “brass” gun.

So, reassured by our feeble adherence to the cult, M. Benevol continued:

Dear Lord, my friends, this is the only living being for whom I have some kind of disgust.

What did the all-merciful Lord do, and what did he do to deserve it?

What did he do? .. What did he do? .. Enough of the fact that he created the Universe and nature!

Nature?.. What are you talking about, Benevil?.. It's wonderful - nature!

It's great, but it's depressing.

Strange pessimism!

But how justified!.. Name me something as hopelessly deplorable, as predatory as this marvelous miniature organization called nature, self-or auto-devouring nature...

How! Does nature eat cars?

Let's start with the fact that it really is, it devours them, as it devours everything else, but I want to express the word “self-devouring” first of all that the life of beings develops and is maintained only at the expense of the substance of other beings.

In what way?

Well, it's easy to explain how! Yes, because one substance, with rare exceptions, is eaten by other substances, and at the moment when it is still alive, trembling, still capable of feeling!

Indeed so!

Listen to what I tell you, there is one thing I will never forgive a merciful god: the inability to eat a lousy soft-boiled egg without experiencing painful remorse.

ABOUT! Wow! How can that be?

To get soft-boiled eggs, you need to boil water. So, putting water on fire, do you think about the suffering of millions of unfortunate microbes, suddenly warmed up to one hundred degrees Celsius, to a thermoform for which they were absolutely not prepared by any preliminary hardening?

Ever since mankind began to boil water, they must have developed a habit.

Ah, my friends, stop smiling... What would you say when you see several million horses immersed in a giant cauldron filled with water that has been boiling for several minutes? Yes, what would you say?

Surely a cry of horror would have burst from our breasts.

This is how it should have happened ... Well, well, how do you know that a simple bacillus is not endowed with the same sensitivity as a horse or even a person?

And it's true.

Oh yeah! Why, then, did the creator come up with this deplorable world order, where suffering pours down on us in a stream, and moments of joy are so rare?

And so fast...

We share your indignation, Monsieur Benevol Mansue.

However, it would be bad form to blame God too harshly for this. It must be admitted that he has extenuating circumstances. Think for yourself, gentlemen, he spent only six days to create the Universe, and, damn it, six days to complete such a responsible task, this is an insignificant period of time. In truth, don't you think it's very difficult to create in such a short period of time even something as absurd as the Universe?

The idea that arose a few days ago, which we present here, to find in paradise God's chosen one, whom his earthly existence would clearly prepare to become the patron saint of motorists, met with a favorable response in the sports world.

Several newspapers reprinted the contents of my proposal, advocating that it be implemented as soon as possible, since, they added, it often happens that the driver does not really know which saint to pray to. And the pedestrian too. By the way, do pedestrians have their own saint?

With much less enthusiasm, I have to admit, was the choice that I thought it possible to make, offering for such a responsible mission a certain holy Auto, a person completely unknown, especially considering that this is just a pitiful figment of my imagination.

“Is it permissible,” one venerable clergyman from the diocese of the city of Tours sternly admonished me in this matter, “is it permissible to have such a long tongue and such a short mind as yours, in order to reduce everything to a pitiful pun in such a most holy deed!” Nevertheless, the common hierarchy of saints is rich in puns of this kind. Peasants in our area make a pilgrimage to the “Holy Morning” in order to be cured of “Ugrophysia” (read: “Saint Etrop” and “Hydrophysia” (dropsy). Yes, and others!

And a venerable clergyman from the diocese of Tours adds:

“If gentlemen motorists wish to have their intercessor before the Almighty, then I would consider it appropriate to recommend to them the prophet Elijah, whom all his deeds in earthly life make worthy of this choice. Refer to the documents, dear sir, and you will not be slow to make sure of the justice of my judgment.

He was right, this Turkish priest, and the painstaking work, which I have the honor to tell you here, confirms this with all certainty.

The prophet Elijah, who was born in Thiobe, a place located, as there is reason to believe, in the land of Gilead, came into this world under very unusual circumstances.

At the moment the baby was born Dogs, his father, saw two people in white clothes come up, they bowed to the newborn, lit a flame around him and even gave him a sip of fire (1 Samuel, XVII, 1).

It is immediately clear that this is a suitable beginning for the future driver, it was this that determined the vocation of our friend.

Indeed, in all noteworthy vicissitudes of its existence, an important place is given to fire.

In the famous competition between Baal and Jehovah, conceived by the wicked Ahab, it was fire that played the main role, for when one hundred and fifty idolater priests failed, despite superhuman efforts, to roast their sacrifice, Elijah built an altar of twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of Israel, he laid firewood on it, laid a calf on top, and pouring twelve jugs of water over it all in three steps, he began to ask Jehovah to start lighting it.

In less than a few minutes, contrary to all expectations, the nondescript building of Elijah was engulfed in flames, and one hundred and fifty servants of the charlatan Baal had to taste the mortal agony of a collective beating.

The modern progress of science, the overcoming of superstitions, allow us to recreate this curious episode in all authenticity.

Twelve jugs of water were twelve jugs of gasoline, and I will never waver from the thought that it was Elijah who was the real inventor of electricity, or, to put it more accurately, "iliaktrichestvo". Oil is found in abundance in those places. Elijah needed only to distill it.

So, the miracle gets a natural explanation.

But in order to see the prophet in the light that interests us, we must wait for the end.

Here I am quoting exactly, or almost exactly, the book of Kings:

“... he was in Gilgal with Elisha, his disciple, when the Lord let him know that his mission was over. He wished to remove Elisha from him, but since Elisha refused to leave him, Elijah climbed into a fiery chariot and, throwing his mantle to Elisha, disappeared in a whirlwind of dust...”

Doesn't this chariot seem to be the first oil- or steam-powered machine to go down in history to any person whose eyes are not obscured by religious fanaticism?

Now the drivers will know which saint to pray to.

NOTES

Alphonse Allais (1854 -1905)

The short stories “God”, “Assigned Glory”, “Saint Elijah - the patron saint of drivers” were published in France in 1891-1902; the short story “God” was translated into Russian for the first time according to the publication: Allais A. Allais... grement. Paris, 1965; the short stories “Assigned Glory” and “Saint Elijah - the patron saint of drivers” are translated into Russian for the first time according to the publication: Allais A. A la une! Paris, 1966.

1 Baal- ancient Canaanite deity, god of the sky, sun, fertility; in the cult of Baal, human sacrifices were common.

2 ..one hundred and fifty idolater priests... - According to the biblical text, "four hundred and fifty prophets of the woods" were gathered (1 Kings, XVIII, 19).

3 Elisha- according to biblical legend, a prophet and a miracle worker: he walked on water as if on dry land, fed a hundred people with several breads, multiplied food from the people he patronized, healed lepers, resurrected a baby with prayer.

4 Milot(Greek, church) - clothes made of sheepskin like a raincoat.

The result of any drawing is a picture. This statement would be true if Kazimir Malevich did not prove the opposite. In 1915, he painted "Black Square on a White Background" and made a shocking confession: "This is not painting, this is something else." Malevich reduced all forms and all painting to absolute zero.
But let's go back in time a little.
Back in 1882, the young French writer and publisher Jules Levy founded the Salon of the Inconsistent, a group of artists, writers, poets and other representatives of the Parisian bohemia of the late 19th century. This association did not pursue any political goals. The band's slogan was "Art is inconsistent." They mocked official values ​​through satire, humor, and sometimes rude jokes. The paintings that were shown at the exhibitions of the Salon were not at all "paintings" in the traditional sense. These were funny cartoons, absurd nightmares, drawings, as if drawn by children. On October 1, 1882, the group opens an exhibition in Paris with the quaint title "Untethered Art".
The exhibition presented the works of six authors who can be considered the forerunners of surrealism, which declared itself 40 years later. The most provocative among the paintings was a one-color, completely black image, painted by the poet Paul Bilhaud (Paul Bilhaud), and it was called
Night fight of blacks in a cave(Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night).



Just a funny picture. And the joke is not even in the picture, but in its title. Indeed, when blacks fight in a cave at night, nothing is visible and everything is black!

Bilford's humorous idea was developed by the artist Alphonse Allais. At the Incoherent shows in 1883, he exhibits a painting
Anemia girls walking to first communion in a snow storm(Pale Young Girls Going to their First Communion in the Snow) , which is a white rectangle.

At the 1884 exhibition, he shows another monochrome drawing - a red rectangle
Apoplectic cardinals picking tomatoes on the shores of the Red Sea(Apoplectic Cardinals Harvesting Tomatoes by the Shores of the Red Sea).

Then followed

Pimps in their prime, on their bellies in the grass, drinking absinthe

The numbness of young soldiers seeing blue for the first time mediterranean sea


Dealing with ocher icteric cuckold husbands

Round dance of drunks in the fog

In the monochrome works of French jokers, the concept of absence was belittled by a humorous title. In the monochrome works of Kazimir Malevich, the same concept was reinforced by a meaningless title. After all, "Black Square" is not a name, it's just a statement.
The most important thing is that the inconsistent Parisian humorists of the late 19th century did not tell the world anything about sacred sense their works. Maybe because it wasn't there. Malevich was much more serious. He tirelessly sculpted the reputation of his masterpiece, taking advantage of all possible ways. As a result, the names of "inconsistent" today are known only to specialists, and the name of Malevich is known to the whole world.

Alphonse Allais was born on October 20, 1854 in Honfleur (Department of Calvados). Soon after completing his studies and receiving a bachelor's degree by the age of seventeen, Alphonse Allais (as an assistant or trainee) entered his father's pharmacy. Alphonse's father with great pride outlined for him a great career chemist or pharmacist. Alphonse Alle brilliantly justified the hopes of his pharmacy father. He became more than a chemist and deeper than a pharmacist. As a debut, Alphonse conducted several daring experiments on the effects on patients of a high-quality placebo of his original formulation, synthesized original counterfeit drugs, and also made several unusually interesting diagnoses “with his own hand”. He will be happy to tell about his first small pharmacy triumphs a little later, in his fairy tale: “The Heights of Darwinism”.
Lady: - I don’t know what’s wrong with me, first the food goes up, and then it goes down ...
Alphonse: - I'm sorry, madam, did you accidentally swallow the elevator?

His father sent him to an internship in the pharmacy of one of his close friends. On closer examination, a few years later this pharmacy turned out to be a privileged Masonic cabaret „ Black cat”, where Alphonse Allais continued to make his recipes and heal the sick with great success. He was engaged in this respected business almost to the end of his life. His friendship with Charles Cros ( famous inventor phonograph) inspired him to publish his most serious research on color photography, as well as a lengthy work on the synthesis of rubber (and the stretching of rubber). In addition, he received a patent for his own recipe for making freeze-dried coffee.

The first careless story of Alphonse marked the beginning of his 25-year writing life. He did not tolerate order in anything and directly stated: “Don’t even hope, I am dishonorable.” He wrote in a cafe, in fits and starts, he hardly worked on books, and it looked something like this: “Don’t talk nonsense ... so that I sit, not tearing my ass off, and poring over a book? - it's impossibly funny! No, I’d rather tear it off!“

Basically it literary creativity consists of stories and fairy tales, which he wrote an average of two or three pieces a week.

A separate literary chapter is the poetry of Alphonse Allais. Most of all of his experiences he valued his one-line (or two-line) poems in a well-known form of pantorhyme ("holorhyme"), composed of "homophones" - that is, pure game monosyllabic words and dissimilar sounds. Each individual word in these verses was repeated in the form of another word of similar sounding in the next line, which is why the rhyme was not at the end of the line, as usual, but the whole line was one continuous rhyme. Practically impossible to translate into another language, this punning poetry after twenty or thirty years was continued in the delusional verses of the Dadaists, the automatic writing of the Surrealists and the "zaumi" of the Oberiuts. The most distant idea of ​​Alla's experiments can be given by Kharms's unusually laconic poem: "For the ladies of the backs of the backs." Here is one example of Alphonse Alle's verbal balancing act:

"Par les bois du djinn où s'entasse de l'effroi,
Parle et bois du gin ou cent tasses de lait froid.

and a rough translation of "Ah, I'm stuffy in here, I'm hot in here, can I finally open the brackets."

Peru Alphonse Alla owns a lot of sharp and juicy aphorisms, very famous -

* We need to be more tolerant of man, nevertheless, let's not forget about the primitive era in which he was created
* As the widow of a man who died after a consultation said top three doctors of Paris: “But what could he do alone, sick, against three - healthy?
* Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow
* With money, even poverty is easier to bear, isn't it?
* What is a lazy person: this is a person who does not even pretend to work
* The hardest thing to survive is the end of the month, especially the last thirty days
* While we are thinking about how best to kill time, time is methodically killing us
* True peak portrait art: when you can easily sit down - and shave in front of your own image
* The hungry belly has no ears, but it has a wonderful scent.

Alphonse Allais also unexpectedly anticipated in almost seventy years the famous minimalist musical piece "4'33 "" by John Cage, which is four and a half "minutes of silence" - Allais called the work even more conceptually "Funeral March for the Deaf Dead" (Marche Funèbre composée pour les Funérailles d "un grand homme sourd) without a single note, of course.

He also passed away in a very peculiar way. The day before, the doctor strictly ordered him not to get up in bed for six months, otherwise - death. " funny people those doctors! They seriously think that death is worse than six months in bed!” As soon as the doctor disappeared behind the door, Alphonse Allais quickly got ready and spent the evening in a restaurant, and to a friend who accompanied him back to the hotel, he told his last joke: “Keep in mind, tomorrow I will already be a corpse! You will find it witty, but I will no longer laugh with you. Now you will be left laughing - without me! So it happened, unfortunately.

After the Second World War, the Alphonse Allais Association of Absolute Apologists (abbreviated as A.A.A.A.A.) was organized in France and is still actively operating. This close-knit group of fanatical people is a public body and even has its own legal address, bank account and headquarters in the Alphonse Allais Museum" on the Upper Street (slightly lower than Eric Satie was born) of the city of Honfleur (Calvados, Normandy, Pharmacy).
Every Saturday in the late afternoon, the Alphonse Museum is open for free visits to all comers. At the service of visitors are laboratory experiments "a la Alle", chemical tastings "a la Alle", diagnoses "a la Alle", inexpensive (but very effective) stomach pills "pur Alle" and even a direct conversation on the old telephone "Hello, Alle" . All these services can be obtained in just half an hour in the gloomy backstage of the Honfleur pharmacy, where Alphonse Allais was born.

02:50 a.m. - Alphonse Alle. Humor of the Black Square.

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Alphonse Allais (fr. Alphonse Allais; October 20, 1854, Honfleur (Department of Calvados) - October 28, 1905, Paris) - French journalist, writer and eccentric humorist, known for his sharp tongue and absurdist antics, a quarter of a century anticipating the famous shocking exhibitions of the Dadaists and Surrealists of the 1910s and 1920s.

Alphonse Allais is also paradoxically known as the "secret" founder or forerunner of conceptualism and minimalism. A quarter of a century before Kazimir Malevich, Alphonse Allais was the author of the famous "black square", and almost seventy years later he unexpectedly anticipated the famous minimalist musical piece "4'33" by John Cage, which is four and a half "minutes of silence".

Alphonse Allais has been an eccentric writer, an eccentric artist and an eccentric person in the fullest sense of the word for almost his entire life. He was eccentric not only in his aphorisms, fairy tales, poems or paintings ... He was eccentric every day, every hour, and sometimes even every minute. Perhaps it would be wrong if the article about him, at least to a small extent, would not be the same as himself. Not too strictly encyclopedic, but a little eccentric.

Picturesque biography

Alphonse Allais, "The first communion of insensible girls in the snow", 1893

In addition to studying literature “under a table in a cafe”, Alphonse Allais had many more important duties for society in his life. In particular, he was a member of the board of the club of honorary hydropaths, as well as one of the main participants accepted into the governing bodies of the Black Cat Masonic cabaret. It was there, at the Galerie Vivienne, during the exhibitions of "Untethered Art" (French "les Arts Incohérents") that he exhibited his famous monochrome paintings for the first time. The first in a series of artistic discoveries by Alphonse Allais was the completely black and almost square canvas “Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night” (1893). Not stopping at the success achieved, then Alle put up a virgin White list Bristol paper titled "First Communion of Unfeeling Girls in the Snow" (also 1893). Six months later, the next picture of Alphonse Allais was perceived as a kind of “coloristic explosion”. The rectangular landscape "Harvesting tomatoes on the shores of the Red Sea by apoplectic cardinals" was a bright red one-color painting without the slightest sign of an image (1894).

"The true pinnacle of portrait art: when you can easily sit down and shave in front of your own image."

Thus, twenty years before the Suprematist revelations of Kazimir Malevich, the venerable artist Alphonse Alle became " by unknown author» first abstract paintings. white rectangle on a white background and a black square on a black background can also be seen as an accurate anticipation of constructivism and conceptualism. Perhaps the only difference between Alphonse Allais and his followers was that he, exhibiting his stunningly innovative work, did not at all try to look like a meaningful philosopher or a serious discoverer. This, perhaps, was the reason for the lack of professional recognition of his contribution to the history of art. With his works in the field of painting, Alphonse Allais very accurately explained the thesis as old as the world: "It's not so important what you do, much more important is how you present it."

"A hungry belly has no ears, but it has a wonderful scent."

Nevertheless, the three squares of Alphonse Alle certainly found their grateful spectators. By the way, one of them turned out to be the same Eric Satie, who completely learned the daring lesson of his older friend and twenty years later he himself wrote the first conceptual and constructivist works, though not paintings, but in the field of literature and music.

“Here is my little dedication to Uncle Alphonse Alla. I like this text. It would rightfully belong to his hand. Exactly twenty years before this thing, uncle published his marvelous work. It was called "The First Communion of frozen maidens, chlorinated with white snow." I sadly think that, due to his white death, he never read my white article with his white eyes ... "

Musical biography

Thanks to a plumber named Vital Oke (Fr. Vital Hocquet), who in his spare time wrote poetry under the pseudonym Narcisse Lebeau (Fr. Narcisse Lebeau), a young composer, author of strange pieces called "Gymnopedia" and "Gnossien" Eric Satie was recommended to joining the privileged cabaret club "Black Cat". And thanks to the same plumber, apparently, such a minimalist composer is known today as Alphonse Allais. Years of friendship and joint work in several magazines and rare trips together on a visit to Honfleur apparently influenced not only Eric Satie himself, a person who is extremely independent and not subject to influences. Judging by all the signs, it was Eric Satie who attracted the attention of the constantly eccentric Alphonse Allais - to music. Until that moment, he did not feel in himself a "composer" and his musical genius dozed. Deep.

Awakened by the no less original and eccentric work of Erik Satie, after nine years of friendly communication, Alphonse Allais decided with one movement of his hand to also make his historical contribution to musical art. In 1897, he composed and "performed" the "Funeral March for the Burial of a Great Deaf Man", which, however, did not contain a single note. Only silence, as a sign of respect for death and understanding of the important principle that great sorrows are dumb. They do not tolerate any fuss or sounds. It goes without saying that the score of this march was a blank page music paper, generously lent by Eric Satie for a one-time performance of Alphonse's masterpiece.

So, sixty years before the play "4'33" by John Cage and almost half a century before the silence of Erwin Schulhoff, Alphonse Allais was the author, if not the first, then the second minimalist musical composition - for sure. We are talking about the fact that the first an example of a minimalist play was created by Eric Satie four years earlier, in April 1893. Being in a state of great annoyance with his obstinate mistress, Suzanne Valadon, Satie composed the play “Vexations” (French “Vexations”), not too long and very monotonous in sound. At the end of the piece there was a caring author's instruction, according to which the pianist had to play this piece "840 times in a row, at will, but no more." However, up to several minutes of penetrating silence as funeral symphony Eric Satie didn’t think of it “according to the dead deaf man” and the priority of inventing the silent direction of minimalism went to another native of Honfleur, who had no musical education at all.

Eric Satie - and Alphonse Allais. The first two, premature and uncrowned minimalists in the history of art. One, who created in the form of his "Troubles" and "Furniture Music" the rehearsal direction of minimalism seventy years before its appearance, and the other, almost at the same time, invented Cage's "silentism" in the form of a silent joke on the death of the great deaf.

Sati and Alle. Today, these two names are rarely spoken side by side, even more rarely linked together. However, contemporaries clearly understood that these two authors, writer and composer, poet and playwright, painter and graphic artist, are next to each other. By the will of fate, Eric Satie, who was twelve years younger, outlived Alphonse Allais by exactly twenty years. But until the very end of his life, Eric Satie often continued to be called “Alphonse Alle of Music” (more often in a negative sense, wanting to somehow scold or belittle). And even in 1924, sending Sati “in retirement” and wanting to “reasonably” insult him, the composer Georges Auric, a very young man who never knew Alphonse Allais, wrote in a literary chronicle:

“Open your eyes! It's just a Norman notary, a suburban pharmacist, citizen Satie of the Council of Arceuil, an old friend of Alphonse Allais and the cantor of the Rose and the Cross.

And perhaps the greatest contribution of Alphonse Allais to musical history one can consider not his mourning march of silence, but Eric Satie himself, the “Alphonse Alle of music”, the same Alphonse Alle who was the “Eric Satie” of literature. Although Satie himself wrote brilliant stories, essays and plays, as well as Alphonse Allais, and painted hundreds of graphic and calligraphic paintings, he was also a musician, just like Allais, and a native of the same Honfleur (Calvados, Normandy) , "where it was sometimes ridiculously hot... for such a small town."

On October 20, 1854, in the small Calvados-Norman town of Honfleur, on the same day with Arthur Rimbaud and in the same place with Eric Satie, Alphonse Allais was born from someone's mother. Later, he would recall about his dear Honfleur that "it was ridiculously hot there ... for such a small town." He studied somehow, and without even trying to hide his little hot enthusiasm, but having finished this dull business, he soon became an intern at his father's pharmacy. From this it is not difficult to conclude that his father was a pharmacist. It was there that the first masterpieces of the chemical creativity of Alphonse Allais were born: for example, nitrofiber for oral administration or the unusual use of nitroglycerin as a salad dressing.

Seeing the very first successes of his son in the field of pharmaceuticals, his father gladly sent him from Honfleur to another French city Paris, where Alphonse Allais spent the rest of his life. Occasionally he came back to visit, most often with Eric Satie, and most often for the money that was always measured out to him on a pharmacy scale. “What a pity that my father was not a butcher,” his son said about this.

By a strange coincidence, Alphonse Allais died on October 28, 1905 in the same city where his father sent him to intern at his friend's pharmacy. This coincidence has remained unclear and has not yet received a reliable scientific explanation.

“... We need to be more tolerant of man, nevertheless, let's not forget about the primitive era in which he was created.”

Alphonse Allais, who died of an embolism at the age of 51, was buried in the most successful way in the Parisian cemetery of fr. Saint-Owen. After 39 years, in April 1944, his grave was wiped off the face of the earth and disappeared without the slightest trace under the friendly bombs of the French liberation army Charles de Gaulle (fr. RAF). More precisely, a certain English plane, flying high above the clouds, accidentally lost one small bomb, even, perhaps, a bomb, which, flying several kilometers from top to bottom, hit exactly on the remains of Alphonse. Undoubtedly, this became one of the most successful (black) jokes of the great humorist. The inventor of the nitroglycerin salad would certainly appreciate his own posthumous and explosive humor. In 2005, the centennial year of the pulmonary embolism of the Hotel Britannia, the imaginary remains of Alphonse Allais were solemnly (with great pomp) transferred to the "top" of the Montmartre hill.

After the Second World War, the political Association of Absolute Apologists of Alphonse Allais (abbreviated as "A.A.A.A.A.") was organized in France and is still actively operating. This close-knit group of fanatical people is a public body in which Alphonse's humor is valued above all other charms of life. AAAAA, among other things, has its registered office, bank account and headquarters in the “Alphonse Allais Smallest Museum” on Upper Street (slightly lower than Eric Satie was born) of the city of Honfleur (Calvados, Normandy, Pharmacy).

“... In life, there are often such moments when the absence of cannibals is felt extremely painful.”

Every Saturday in the late afternoon, the Alphonse Museum is open for free visits to everyone who wants to ventilate the skull a little. At the service of visitors are laboratory experiments "a la Alle", chemical tastings "a la Alle", diagnoses "a la Alle", inexpensive (but very effective) stomach pills "pur Alle" and even a direct conversation on the old telephone "Hello, Alle" . All these services can be obtained in just half an hour in the gloomy backstage of the Honfleur pharmacy, where Alphonse Allais was born. This extremely cramped space has also been declared the smallest museum in the world, not excluding the world's smallest Alphonse Allais "Authentic Room" museum in Paris, and the smallest "Eric Satie's Closet" museum in the French Ministry of Culture. These three smallest museums in the world are vying for the title of who is smaller. Alle's permanent guide for many years is a certain man, Jean-Yves Loriot, who constantly carries an official document confirming that he is the illegal reincarnation of the great humorist Alphonse Alle.

“To drive away is quite a bit to die. But to die is a very strong departure

Alphonse Allais as Writer ( late XIX century)

Alphonse Allais broke with pharmacies and began to publish regularly a very long time ago, it was, I think, in 1880-82. Alphonse's first careless story marked the beginning of his 25-year writing life, the end of which could only be ended by his amusing death. Unfortunately, by nature, Alphonse Allais was a completely frivolous person. He worked just as funny and frivolous. He did not tolerate order in anything and directly stated: “Don’t even hope, I am dishonorable.” He wrote in a cafe, in fits and starts, he hardly worked on books, and it looked something like this: “Don’t talk nonsense ... so that I sit, not tearing my ass off, and poring over a book? - it's impossibly funny! No, I’d rather tear it off!“

Basically, his literary work consists of stories and fairy tales, which he wrote on average two or three pieces a week. Having a “heavy duty” to write a ridiculous column, and sometimes even a whole column in a magazine or newspaper, he involuntarily had to “laugh for money” almost a day later. During his life he changed seven newspapers, some he had in turn, and three at the same time. He was especially noted in the Masonic cabaret magazine The Black Cat (French Le Chat Noir), from which he began his serious career and where he later became an editor, the funniest editor in the world, no doubt.

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”

However, the number of newspapers in which Alle wrote was actually much more than it might seem at first glance. In the 1880s, a certain Francis Sarcey (Fr. Francisque Sarcey) was very famous in Paris. literary critic authoritative newspaper "Tan" (fr. Le Temps). It would be nice to know that the author of many, if not most of his articles was ... aspiring journalist Alphonse Allais. This Sarseus was not a very hardworking person, but he was very important and imposing. More precisely, "he had weight." He willingly allowed "some" to sign with his last name, for some "percentage", of course. In addition, without having the surname Sarsei, it is unlikely that any Alla would have been able to publish in Tan. So, article after article, month after month, gradually the brilliant name of Sarsei entered the legend. Very popular in the magazine and cabaret "Black Cat" under the familiar nickname "our uncle" (or simply "Sarseyushka"), every year he increasingly published articles with his signature, to which he had nothing to do. So by 1888 their main author, Alphonse Allais, had every right to declare:

Thus, first of all, a lively eccentric, then a little journalist and editor, and only in last turn a writer, Alle worked forever in a hurry, wrote dozens of his "fairy tales", hundreds of stories and thousands of articles on his left knee, in a hurry and most often - at a table (or under a table) in a cafe. Therefore, many of his works have been lost, even more have lost their value, but most of all - and remained on the tip of the tongue - unwritten. It is no coincidence that one of Alphonse Allais' stories "The Boot" (fr. Le bottin) begins with the following exercise:

“To tell the truth, I feel a terrible disgust for life in a cafe. First of all, of course, because the time spent in such establishments is hopelessly stolen from piety and prayer... Alas, modern life(although they say that in the Middle Ages modern life was completely different), but now even the most severe fellows, knocking themselves out of last strength, still force themselves to drag their feet in a cafe every day in order to become at least a little like the Real Drunkard himself from under the fence.

- (Alphonse Allais, "The Boot", story.)

The same Alphonse Allais, who felt "terrible disgust for life in cafes", he made appointments in cafes, ate in cafes, composed in cafes, lived in cafes, and died in one of these cafes called "Austen Fox" located on Rue Amsterdam in Paris. For the sake of the final purity of the picture, below is a small excerpt from an article by Eric Satie, written thirty years after the previous "Boot" by Alphonse Allais. And here's what you can see there:

“... Of course, I sometimes happen to go to the Cafe; but in any case, I hide myself - and not because of hypocrisy (which is also reprehensible), but only on the advice of prudent caution - and, mainly, so that I can not be seen. I would be ashamed if they saw me here, because, as Uncle Alphonse Allais often warned me: “this can cause a misfire in marriage.” What this "misfire" could be, he did not explain. But I still believe him. As to myself."

Alphonse Allais never settled on one thing. Poor quality for a professional. But he never was, a typical amateur, amateur - in everything. He wanted to write everything at once, to cover everything, to succeed in everything, but in nothing in particular. Even clean literary genres he is always confused, crumbling and replacing one another. Under the guise of articles, he wrote stories, under the name of fairy tales - he described his acquaintances, wrote puns instead of poetry, said "fables" - but he meant black humor, and even scientific inventions in his hands acquired a cruel look of satire on human science and human nature …

“...With money, even poverty is easier to bear, isn't it?”

Alphonse Allais cared little for individual publications their works. Only a few of the large number of fairy tales were selected by publishers from a huge number of publications in the weekly Black Cat, Journal (Fr. Le Journal) and Smile (Fr. Le Sourire) and published during the lifetime of Alphonse Allais. Here are the names of these collections, they speak for themselves: “I laughed!” (1891), "Live the Life!" (1892), "Two and Two Five" (1895), "We're Not Beef" (1896), "Love, Pleasure and Organs" (1898), "Don't let yourself be hit!" (1900) and "Captain Cup" (1902).

"What is a lazy person: this is a person who does not even pretend to work."

A separate literary chapter is the poetry of Alphonse Allais. Most of all of his experiences, he appreciated his one-line (or two-line) poems in a certain form of pantorhyme (or "holorhyme"), composed of "homophones" - that is, a pure play of monotonous words and contradictory sounds. Each individual word in these verses was repeated in the form of another word of similar sounding in the next line, which is why the rhyme was not at the end of the line, as usual, but the whole line was one continuous rhyme. Practically impossible to translate into another language, this punning poetry after twenty or thirty years was continued in the delusional verses of the Dadaists, the automatic writing of the Surrealists and the "zaumi" of the Oberiuts. The most distant idea of ​​Alla's experiments can be given by Kharms's unusually laconic poem: "For the ladies, I'll give it to the back" (it would be interesting to know who would undertake to translate it into French). Kharms had half of two lines left, and instead of the usual five or six words for Alla, only one. Here is one example of Alphonse Alle's verbal balancing act:

"Par les bois du djinn où s'entasse de l'effroi,

Parle et bois du gin ou cent tasses de lait froid.

Both lines, upon a cursory reading, sound almost indistinguishable by ear, but they mean exquisite poetic nonsense, moreover, completely different in content. Alphonse Allais himself commented on his own experiments something like this: “Maybe the rhyme is not too rich, but I like it. In any case, it's better than looking like a "poet" and falling into banality at every step. His pure Honfleur juggling art here again consists in playing freely with words, sounds and meanings - up to their complete connection and loss. His goal in this case is freedom, or at least the appearance of it. ("Ah, it's stuffy in here, it's hot in here, can I finally open the brackets").

"The hardest thing to get through is the end of the month, especially the last thirty days."

In 1892, when his young friend Erik Satie left the "priestly theater" of the Rose and Cross and broke with the main "priest" and playwright-demiurge Josephine Péladan, Alphonse Allais immediately reacted to the conflict, very opportunely screwing in his next sharp word. It was either a pun, or another "homophonic poem" about the "magician" Péladan, whom he called the "false magician from Livaro." The French will easily understand the virtuoso pun: this line sounded like “fo-maj de Livaro” - and the combination of “fo-maj” could at the same time be understood as “fake magician” or “fromage de Livaro” - a particularly smelly variety of red mold cheese. At the same time, Eric Satie himself also “got it”, who immediately received his first winged nickname, which followed him all his life:

“I'm happy to announce that we've kicked out Peladan along with his tedious pulpit! How immediately it felt good and free without him... And how immediately I wanted to become Peladan myself. Thirty years later, I have to admit, I did not succeed very well. On the one side. But on the other hand, my dear Alphonse, or rather, my fellow countryman Uncle Alphonse Allais, a great wit, as soon as I gave Peladan a good one for one place, immediately christened me in a nutshell: "Esoteric Sati, or Eric Esoteric." Honestly, even now I am almost happy when I see this word, without clarification ... "

It is most evident here that for Alphonse Allais there was no clear boundary between art and life, between a joke and literature. A natural Norman juggler with words, a subtle linguist, a virtuoso master of puns, a play on words - this is his main strong point and vocation. Most often, this path led Alphonse Allais to absurdity, an accidental discovery, or the so-called black humor. "A baked potato is easier to digest than a clay apple." "The tubers of nonsense fly farther than the hoods of piety." "The seeds of stupidity sprout more easily than the tares of reason."

"The victory of stinginess: learn to sleep on the motes that you do not see in your own eye and heat your apartment in winter with logs that you see in someone else's."

Captain Cap from latest collection Alphonse Allais is another symbol of the path to the foundation of meaning, that deep underground radish where all meanings merge and immediately lose their meaning. Here it is last words: “The bureaucracy is typical microbes, what to talk about with them? Because we don't negotiate with microbes. We are killing them." Well, finally, a wonderful recipe for another Alle cocktail with nitrocellulose and glycerin. Or vice versa.

At times soft and whimsical, like the American humorist James Thurber, more often darkly and sarcastically, like the "devil writer" Ambrose Bierce, Alphonse Allais's literature is reminiscent of the fantasies and fictions of Cyrano de Bergerac's "The Other World" and certainly anticipates the word games and many of Boris Vian's absurdist plots.
Alphonse Allais, illustrated by Sacha Guitry

“If the sea does not overflow, it is only because Providence has taken care to supply the ocean waters with sponges.”

In 1913, eight years after the death of "dear uncle" Alphonse, drawing his self-portrait, Eric Satie wrote two short lines under it: "I was born too young in too old times." With regret, we have to admit that these words are fully applicable to Alphonse Alla, with the only difference being that Eric Satie, though not much, still lived to a young age, and Alphonse died - ten years before them, in 1905.

“While we think about how best to kill time, time is methodically killing us.”

But even after his classic “Embolism at the Hotel Britannia”, Alphonse himself has already turned into a pun and a household name. Long years after his death, Parisian intellectuals arrogantly used the word "Halle" to say: "This is not serious, you can not take it into account!" However, such a game with the word "Alle" turned out to be obvious thoughtlessness. Almost forgotten for thirty years, Alphonse Allais disappeared for a while, but only until the surrealists and famous literati such as Sacha Guitry and Jacques Prevert brought his questionable jokes back to the general public. André Breton included the tales of Alphonse Allais in the famous "Anthology of Black Humor", thus recognizing the excellent surreal qualities of his jokes and no jokes. And the term "surrealism" itself, coined for the first time in 1917 by Apollinaire for the premiere of the ballet "Parade", was also a kind of "great-nephew" of Uncle Alphonse. For the author of the first surrealistic ballet, “more truthful than life itself” (which is a direct translation of the word “surrealism”), was his direct heir, fellow countryman and friend, Eric Satie.

In July 2005, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, during a press conference, coined with great aplomb the supposedly new term "economic patriotism". It is especially pleasant to note that the true authorship of this "new" social democratic theory belongs to ... Alphonse Allais and was first published in his fundamental "economic" book "Two and Two Five". Well, then, not only "surrealism", but also social democracy? Alla's ideas still live and win today.

Alphonse Allais (fr. Alphonse Allais)

Alphonse Allais was not only an eccentric writer, an eccentric artist and an eccentric person, but also an "eccentric philosopher".
His creativity and way of behaving possessed the property of totality. He was eccentric not only in his stories, aphorisms, fairy tales, poems or paintings, but also in the most ordinary everyday life, because "there was no center for him in anything."
By the way, even his death was eccentric.

In the tone of school sneak:
- And Malevich draws from Alla ...

- Picturesque masterpieces by Alphonse ALLET -

The French journalist and humorist Alphonse Allais was one of the founders of the Absurd Arts group (1882-1893). He is also known as the "secret" founder or forerunner of conceptualism and minimalism, and also as the first in the world abstract artist, who worked in the "monochrome" style much earlier than Malevich.
The first in a series of artistic discoveries by Alphonse Allais was a completely black and almost square canvas called "Battle of Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night".

Not stopping at the success achieved, Alle put up a virgin Blank sheet Bristol paper - "The first communion of insensible girls in the snow"

And then Alphonse suffered ...

P.S. To be fair, I want to note that the idea of ​​the "black square/rectangle" did not even belong to Alla, who was inspired by Paul Bilhodo's painting "Night Fight of Negroes in the Basement", 1882 (the painting was rectangular and exhibited vertically).
Apparently, Alphonse Alla liked Paul Bilhodo's idea about Negroes so much that he not only supported it, but also developed it.
But Malevich was engaged exclusively in plagiarism (IMHO). By the way, Malevich drew 4 AUTHOR'S(!) copies of his square. )

- History of "Black Squares" -

More V early XVII century English philosopher, alchemist and occultist Robert Fludd illustrated his treatise on the origin and development of the universe with six engravings. The first of these was called great darkness". It was probably the only square before Malevich that carried a philosophical meaning.


*****
Two hundred years later Bertal(real name D'Arnoux Charles Albert), known as a cartoonist, portraitist, author of illustrations for the books of Andersen, Dumas, Dickens, Perrault, again turned to this topic. In 1843. Bertal created the work " View of La Hogue (night effect), Jean-Louis Petit”, representing a black rectangle in a horizontal position, covered with obscure characters (this is what a modern night shot from space might look like). What did the author want to say? Most likely it was just a joke.


*****
The satirical book "The Picturesque History of Holy Rus'" also begins with the "black square". Gustave Dore published in 1854. However, for the 22-year-old artist, who had been publishing his cartoons and caricatures in popular Parisian magazines since the age of fifteen, the shaded square was not a symbol of the unknowability of the world around him, but only reflected his idea of ​​the origin of Russia. The caption for this illustration reads: The origin of Russian history is lost in the mists of time».

*****
In October 1882 a group of representatives of the Parisian bohemia "Salon of the inconsistent", who worked under the slogan "Art inconsistently", opens an exhibition of works that can be characterized as absurd and caricatured. The most defiant among the paintings was a one-color, absolutely black canvas written by the poet Paul Bilhod with a politically incorrect title Night fight of blacks in the basement".

*****
Next comes the picture Alphonse Alle, "The battle of the blacks in the cave in the dead of night"(1893 ), and in 1915 Malevich appeared with his "Black Suprematist Square", under which such a "serious theoretical base" was summed up, from which I personally felt sick!

Wikipedia has articles about other people with this last name, see Alle.

Alphonse Alle(fr. Alphonse Allais; October 20, 1854, Honfleur (Department of Calvados) - October 28, 1905, Paris) - French journalist, eccentric writer and black humorist, known for his sharp tongue and gloomy absurdist antics, a quarter of a century anticipating the famous outrageous Dada and Surrealist exhibitions of the 1910s and 1920s -s.

Alphonse Allais is also known as the "secret" founder and forerunner of conceptualism and minimalism in literature, painting and even music.
With his funeral-eccentric play Magnum's Revenge (1893-1895), he anticipated minimalism in theater and fiction by more than half a century. :7-9
More than a quarter of a century before the famous "Black Square" by Kazimir Malevich, in 1882-1884 Alphonse Allais invented his "monochrome painting" (white, red and yellow rectangles - and only the right of the first night to "black almost square"(1882) formally belongs to his friend of that time, also a writer-humorist Paul Billot).
And finally, with his "Funeral March for the Death of the Great Deaf Man", Alphonse Allais was fifty-five years ahead of John Cage's outrageous minimalist musical piece "4'33", which is four and a half "minutes of silence". :7-9

Alphonse Allais was not just an eccentric writer, an eccentric artist and an eccentric person, but also a real eccentric philosopher. His creativity and way of behaving possessed the property of totality. He was eccentric not only in his stories, aphorisms, fairy tales, poems or paintings, but also in the most ordinary everyday life, because there was no center for him in anything. :7-9

Biography

Alphonse Allais was born on October 20, 1854 in Honfleur (Department of Calvados) at 119 Upper Street. :11 Alphonse's father, Mr. Allais, was a man of old rules, very honest and highly respectable. He didn't make a fortune. In those days, the profession of a pharmacist was not so much to sell ready-made medications how much in writing prescriptions, mixing powders and dosing liquids. Thus, Mr. Allais Sr. was, first of all, a chemist and laboratory assistant. Alphonse was the second child and first son after his older sister Jeanne-Rose-Matilde. He was born in the family of the pharmacist Charles-Auguste Allais, and his wife Alfonsina, nee Vivienne (fr. Vivien). The child was baptized on October 28 at St. Catherine's and the following day an announcement was printed in the Honfleur Echo newspaper. :p.V Honfleur, in those days it was a small port town on the English Channel. Later, he will remember about his dear Honfleur, that "It was ridiculously hot in there... for such a small town." :15

Twelve years later, at a distance of a few steps from this place at 122 Upper Street, the same composer as Alphonse Allais, writer Eric Satie, was born. Both Alphonse Allais and Eric Satie both attended a college in their childhood, which was under the direction of director Arthur Boudin (fr. Arthur Boudin), from where they brought the most unpleasant memories of the years of teaching and those people who “teach”. When someone in the family fell ill and a serious consultation was required, a friend of the family, Dr. Flaubert, was urgently called from Rouen, who willingly sat down at the family table and talked a lot about his famous brother. :p.V-VI

Having quickly completed his studies and received a bachelor's degree by the age of seventeen, Alphonse Allais (as an assistant or trainee) entered his own father's pharmacy, located on the same "Upper Street, only a little lower" (that is, closer to the beginning). Being your own father's assistant... not so bad for a career start. Alphonse's father, with great pride, charted for him a career as a great chemist or pharmacist. The future will show: Alphonse Allais brilliantly justified the hopes of his pharmacy father. He became more than a chemist and deeper than a pharmacist. However, even the very beginning of his activities in the family pharmacy has already proved to be very promising. As a debut, Alphonse conducted several daring experiments on the effects on patients of a high-quality placebo of his original formulation, synthesized original counterfeit drugs, and also made several unusually interesting diagnoses with his own hands. He will be happy to tell about his first small pharmacy triumphs a little later, in his fairy tale: The Heights of Darwinism.

“... I also found something for a lady who suffered severely from her stomach: Lady:- I don't know what's wrong with me, first the food goes up and then goes down... Gigolo:“I beg your pardon, madam, did you accidentally swallow the elevator?” :12

- (Alphonse Allais, "Laughed!")

Having discovered the very first successes of his son in the field of pharmaceuticals, his father gladly sent him from Honfleur to Paris, where Alphonse Allais spent the rest of his life. Occasionally he came back to visit, most often with Eric Satie, and most often for the money that was always measured out to him on a pharmacy scale. “What a pity that my father was not a butcher,” his son said about this. His father sent him to an internship in the pharmacy of one of his close friends. On closer examination, a few years later this pharmacy turned out to be the privileged Masonic cabaret "Black Cat", where Alphonse Allais continued to compose his prescriptions and heal the sick with great success. He was engaged in this respected business almost to the end of his life. His friendship with Charles Cros (famous inventor of the phonograph) should have brought him back to scientific research, but these plans again did not come true. The fundamental scientific works of Alphonse Allais represent a contribution to science, although today they are much less known than he himself. :13 Alphonse Allais published his most serious research on color photography, as well as a lengthy work on the synthesis of rubber (and the stretching of rubber). In addition, he received a patent for his own recipe for making freeze-dried coffee. :13

At the age of 41, Alphonse Allais married Marguerite Allais in 1895. The young couple settled right in Paris, in a residential building number 7 on Rue Édouard-Detail (fr. Edouard Detaille). By the way, the Alphonse Allais Museum, according to its organizers, “the smallest in the world” is still not at this address at all, but in a real authentic Parisian room, where Alphonse Allais not only never lived, did not eat, did not sleep but he couldn't even be there. :14

A man who looks like Alphonse Allais (late 19th century)

“... We need to be more tolerant of man, nevertheless, let's not forget about the primitive era in which he was created”. :16

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

He died in one of the rooms of the Hotel Britannia (Fr. Britannia), which is on rue Amsterdam, not far from the cafe "Austen-Fox" (fr. Austin-Fox), where Alphonse Allais spent a lot of free time. The day before, the doctor had strictly ordered him not to get up in bed for six months, only then recovery seemed possible. Otherwise, death. “Funny people, these doctors! They seriously think that death is worse than six months in bed!” As soon as the doctor disappeared behind the door, Alphonse Allais quickly got ready and spent the evening in a restaurant, :p.XLVIII and to a friend who accompanied him back to the hotel, he told his last anecdote:

“Keep in mind, tomorrow I will already be a corpse! You will find it witty, but I will no longer laugh with you. Now you'll be left laughing - without me. So tomorrow I'll be dead!" :10 In full accordance with its latest funny joke, he died the next day, October 28, 1905.

"... As the widow of a man who died after a consultation of three the best doctors Paris: "But what could he do alone, sick, against three - healthy?" :11

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Alphonse Allais was buried in the Parisian cemetery of Saint-Ouen (fr. Saint-Ouen). 39 years later, in April 1944, his grave was razed to the ground and disappeared without the slightest trace under the friendly bombs of the French liberation army of Charles de Gaulle (fr. RAF). In 2005, the imaginary remains of Alphonse Allais were solemnly (with great pomp) transferred to the "top" of the Montmartre hill. :16

After the Second World War, the political Association of Absolute Apologists of Alphonse Allais (abbreviated as "A.A.A.A.A.") was organized in France and is still actively operating. This close-knit group of fanatical people is a public body in which Alphonse's humor is valued above all other charms of life. AAAAA, among other things, has its registered office, bank account and headquarters in the "Smallest Alphonse Allais Museum" on Upper Street (slightly lower than Eric Satie was born) of the city of Honfleur (Calvados, Normandy, Pharmacy). :17

“... In life, such moments often happen when the absence of cannibals is felt extremely painfully” :17 .

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Every Saturday in the late afternoon, the Alphonse Museum is open for free visits to all comers. At the service of visitors are laboratory experiments "a la Alle", chemical tastings "a la Alle", diagnoses "a la Alle", inexpensive (but very effective) gastric pills "pur Alle" and even a direct conversation on the old phone "Allo , Alle. :18 All these services can be obtained in just half an hour in the gloomy backstage of the Honfleur pharmacy, where Alphonse Allais was born. This extremely cramped space has also been declared the smallest museum in the world, not excluding the world's smallest Alphonse Allais "Authentic Room" museum in Paris, and the smallest "Eric Satie's Closet" museum in the French Ministry of Culture. These three smallest museums in the world vie for the title, who is less. Alle's permanent guide for many years is a certain man, Jean-Yves Loriot, who constantly carries an official document confirming that he is the illegal reincarnation of the great humorist Alphonse Alle.

“To drive away is quite a bit to die. But to die is to drive off very strongly! :18

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Literary biography

Alphonse Allais as Writer (late 19th century)

Alphonse Allais broke with pharmacies and began to publish regularly a very long time ago - it was, I think, in 1880-82. Alphonse's first careless story marked the beginning of his 25-year writing life. He did not tolerate order in anything and directly stated "Don't even hope, I'm dishonorable." I wrote in a cafe, in fits and starts, almost did not work on books, and it looked something like this: “Don’t be silly… so I can sit on my butt and pore over a book? - it's impossibly funny! No, I’d rather tear it off!” :18

The first book by Alphonse Allais entitled "White Night of the Red Hussar" (fr. La Nuit blanche d'un hussard rouge ) was published in early 1887 by Ollendorf, it was a 36-page pamphlet with illustrations by the artist Karan d'Ash. :p.XXII From that moment on, Allais' collections began to appear annually, and sometimes twice, and this continued until 1900, after which Alphonse stopped working with Parisian publishers. Basically, his literary work consists of stories and fairy tales, which he wrote on average two or three pieces a week. Having a "heavy duty" to write a ridiculous column, and sometimes even a whole column in a magazine or newspaper, he involuntarily had to "laugh for money" almost every other day. During his life he changed seven newspapers, some he had in turn, and three - simultaneously. He was especially noted in the Masonic magazine of the cabaret "Black Cat" (fr. Le Chat Noir), from which he began his serious career and where he later became an editor, the funniest editor in the world, no doubt.

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow". :20

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

However, the number of newspapers in which Alle wrote was actually much more than it might seem at first glance. In the 1880s, a certain Francis Sarsay (fr. Francisque Sarcey) literary critic of the authoritative newspaper "Tan" (fr. Le Temps). The author of many, if not most of his articles was ... aspiring journalist Alphonse Allais. :20 This Sarseus was not a very industrious person, but he was very important and imposing. More precisely, "he had weight." He willingly allowed "some" to sign with his last name, for some "percentage", of course. In addition, without having the surname Sarsei, it is unlikely that any Alla would have been able to publish in Tan. So, article after article, month after month, gradually the brilliant name of Sarsei entered the legend. Very popular in the magazine and cabaret "Black Cat" under the familiar nickname "our uncle" (or simply "Sarseyushka"), every year he increasingly published articles with his signature that he had nothing to do with. Having begun to use this peculiar parodic “pseudonym” under his articles since 1886, :p.XXXIX a couple of years later, their main author, Alphonse Allais, had every right to declare publicly:

“Only two persons in Paris have the full right to sign Sarsay; first - it's me, and only then - Mr. Francis Sarsay himself.

Thus, first of all, a lively eccentric, then a little journalist and editor, and only lastly a writer, Alle worked forever in a hurry, wrote dozens of his “fairy tales”, hundreds of stories and thousands of articles on his left knee, in a hurry and most often - at the table (or under a table) in a cafe. Therefore, many of his works have been lost, even more have lost their value, but most of all - and remained on the tip of the tongue - unwritten. It is no coincidence that one of the stories of Alphonse Allais "The Boot" (fr. Le bottin) starts like this:

“To tell the truth, I feel a terrible disgust for life in a cafe. First of all, of course, because the time spent in such institutions is hopelessly stolen from piety and prayer ... Alas, modern life is like this (although they say that in the Middle Ages modern life was completely different), but now even the most severe fellows, struggling out of their last strength, they still force themselves to drag their feet in a cafe from day to day in order to become at least a little like the real drunkard from under the fence.

- (Alphonse Allais, The Left Shoe, :46-51 story.)

The same Alphonse Allais, who felt "terrible disgust for life in cafes", he made appointments in cafes, ate in cafes, composed in cafes, lived in cafes, and died in one of these cafes called "Austen Fox" located on Rue Amsterdam in Paris. For the sake of the final purity of the picture, below is a small excerpt from an article by Eric Satie, written thirty years after the previous "Boot" by Alphonse Allais. And here's what you can see there:

“... Of course, I sometimes happen to go to the Cafe; but in any case, I hide myself - and not because of hypocrisy (which is also reprehensible), but only on the advice of prudent caution - and, mainly, so that I can not be seen. I would be ashamed if they saw me here, because, as Uncle Alphonse Allais often warned me: “this can cause a misfire in marriage.” What this "misfire" could be, he did not explain. But I still believe him. As to myself."

Alphonse Allais never settled on one thing. He wanted to write everything at once, to cover everything, to succeed in everything, but in nothing in particular. Even purely literary genres are always confused, crumbling and replacing one another. Under the guise of articles, he wrote stories, under the name of fairy tales - he described his acquaintances, wrote puns instead of poetry, said "fables" - but he meant black humor, and even scientific inventions in his hands acquired a cruel look of satire on human science and human nature …

“...With money, even poverty is easier to bear, isn't it?” :23

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Alphonse Allais cared little about individual editions of his works. Only a few stories and "fairy tales" from the huge number of publications in the weeklies "Black Cat", "Journal" (fr. Le Journal) and "Smile" (fr. Le Sourire) were selected by him at the request of the publishers and published during the lifetime of Alphonse Allais. Here are the names of these collections, they speak for themselves: “I laughed!” (1891), "Live the Life!" (1892), "Two and Two Five" (1895), "We're Not Beef" (1896), "Love, Pleasure and Organs" (1898), "Don't let yourself be hit!" (1900) and "Captain Cup" (1902).

“What is a lazy person: this is a person who does not even pretend to work”. :19

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Writer Alphonse Allais as himself (late 19th century)

A separate literary chapter is the poetry of Alphonse Allais. Most of his experiences, he valued his one-line (or two-line) poems in a well-known form of pantorhyme. (or "holorhyme"), made up of "homophones" - that is, a pure play of monosonic words and contradictory sounds. Each individual word in these verses was repeated in the form of another word of similar sounding in the next line, which is why the rhyme was not at the end of the line, as usual, but the whole line was one continuous rhyme. Practically impossible to translate into another language, this punning poetry, twenty or thirty years later, was continued in the delusional verses of the Dadaists, the automatic writing of the Surrealists and the "zaumi" of the Oberiuts. The most distant idea of ​​Alla's experiments can be given by a kind of paraphrase to the chorus of the popular song by Mikhail Savoyarov “Because of the Ladies”, an extremely laconic poem by Kharms: “For the ladies, back to back” (it would be interesting to know who would undertake to translate it into French?) Kharms had half of two lines left, and instead of the usual five or six words for Alla, only one. :24 Here is one of the examples of Alphonse Alle's verbal balancing act:

"Par les bois du djinn où s'entasse de l'effroi, Parle et bois du gin ou cent tasses de lait froid."

Both lines, upon a cursory reading, sound almost indistinguishable by ear, but they mean exquisite poetic nonsense, moreover, completely different in content. Alphonse Allais himself commented on his own experiments something like this: “Maybe the rhyme is not too rich, but I like it. In any case, it's better than looking like a "poet" and falling into banality at every step.. :25 His pure Honfleur juggling art here again consists in freely playing with words, sounds and meanings - until their complete connection and loss. His goal in this case is freedom, or at least the appearance of it. ("Ah, it's stuffy in here, it's hot in here, can I finally open the brackets").

"The hardest thing to get through is the end of the month, especially the last thirty days." :25

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

In 1892, when his young friend Erik Satie left the "priestly theater" of the Rose and Cross and broke with the main "priest" and playwright-demiurge Josephine Péladan, Alphonse Allais immediately reacted to the conflict, very opportunely screwing in his next sharp word. It was either a pun, or another "homophonic poem" about the "magician" Péladan, whom he called the "false magician from Livaro." The French will easily understand the virtuoso pun: this line sounded like Faux Majes de Livaro- and combination "fo-mazh" at the same time it could be understood as a "fake magician" or "Fromage de Livaro" - a particularly smelly variety of red mold cheese. At the same time, Eric Satie himself also “got it”, who immediately received his first winged nickname, which followed him all his life:

“I'm happy to announce that we've kicked out Peladan along with his tedious pulpit! How immediately it felt good and free without him... And how immediately I wanted to become Peladan myself. Thirty years later, I have to admit, I did not succeed very well. On the one side. But on the other hand, my dear Alphonse, or rather, my fellow countryman Uncle Alphonse Allais, a great wit, as soon as I gave Peladan a good one for one place, immediately christened me in a nutshell: "Esoteric Sati, or Eric Esoteric". Honestly, even now I am almost happy when I see this word, without specification ... "

- (Erik Satie, Yuri Khanon, "Reminiscences in retrospect", November 1892)

It is most evident here that for Alphonse Allais there was no clear boundary between art and life, between a joke and literature. A natural Norman juggler with words, a subtle linguist, a virtuoso master of puns, a play on words - this is his main strong point and vocation. Most often, this path led Alphonse Allais to absurdity, an accidental discovery, or the so-called black humor. "A baked potato is easier to digest than a clay apple." "The tubers of nonsense fly farther than the hoods of piety." "The seeds of stupidity sprout more easily than the tares of reason." :26

"Victory of stinginess: learn to sleep on motes that you do not see in your own eye and heat your apartment in winter with logs that you see in someone else's".

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Captain Cap from the last collection of Alphonse Allais is another symbol of the path to the foundation of meaning, that deep underground radish where all meanings connect and immediately lose their meaning. Here are his last words: “The bureaucracy is typical microbes, what should we talk about with them? Because we don't negotiate with microbes. We kill them". :27 Well, great recipe another cocktail Alle with nitrocellulose and glycerin, finally. Or vice versa.

Melancholic and misanthrope, for life Alphonse Allais doomed himself to the mask of a "laugher", entertaining salesmen, bourgeois, burghers and other "flat people from this world", whom he deeply despised. It was this, this discrepancy to himself that made him a special and tragic writer. And yet, in spite of everything, he continued to mock, mock, but make laugh..., mix at any cost. :28-29 At times soft and whimsical, like the American humorist James Thurber, more often darkly and sarcastically, like the "devil writer" Ambrose Bierce, Alphonse Allais's literature recalls the fantasies and fictions of Cyrano de Bergerac's "Other World" and certainly anticipates word games and many absurdist stories by Boris Vian. :thirty

Alphonse Allais, illustrated by Sacha Guitry

“If the sea does not overflow, it is only because Providence has taken care to supply the ocean waters with sponges”.

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Eric Satie, self-portrait, 1913

In 1913, eight years after the death of "dear uncle" Alphonse, drawing his self-portrait, Erik Satie wrote two short lines under it: "I was born too young in too old times". With regret, we have to admit that these words are fully applicable to Alphonse Alla, with the only difference being that Eric Satie, though not much, still lived to a young age, and Alphonse died - ten years before them, in 1905.

“While we are thinking about how best to kill time, time is methodically killing us”. :31

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

But even after his classic “Embolism at the Hotel Britannia”, Alphonse himself has already turned into a pun and a household name. For many years after his death, Parisian intellectuals arrogantly used the word "Alle" in order to say: “This is not serious, you can not take it into account!” However, such a game with the word "Alle" turned out to be obvious thoughtlessness. Almost forgotten for thirty years, Alphonse Allais disappeared for a while, but only until the surrealists and famous literati such as Sacha Guitry and Jacques Prevert brought his questionable jokes back to the general public. André Breton included the tales of Alphonse Allais in the famous "Anthology of Black Humor", thus recognizing the excellent surreal qualities of his jokes and no jokes. And the term "surrealism" itself, coined for the first time in 1917 by Apollinaire for the premiere of the ballet "Parade", was also a kind of "great-nephew" of Uncle Alphonse. For the author of the first surreal ballet, "more true than life itself"(which is a direct translation of the word "surrealism") - was his direct heir, countryman and friend - Eric Satie. :32

In July 2005, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, during a press conference, introduced with great aplomb the supposedly new term "economic patriotism" (apparently with the aim of at least somehow consolidating the fading remnants of the French nation). However, it would not be superfluous to note that genuine the authorship of this "original" social democratic theory belongs to ... also Alphonse Allais and was first published in his fundamental "economic" collection "Two and Two Five". :32 That's right Name, "Economic Patriotism", is one of the toughest and most famous stories this book.
- Well, then, not only "surrealism", but also social democracy? Alla's ideas still live and win today.

Picturesque biography

In addition to studying literature “under a table in a cafe”, Alphonse Allais had many more important duties for society in his life. In particular, since 1878 he took the post of head of the school of "fumism" (a community of smokers in the eyes, fr. "fumisme"), :p.XVI while simultaneously being a member of the board of the club of honorary hydropaths, as well as one of the main participants accepted into the governing bodies of the Black Cat Masonic cabaret.

Alphonse Allais, The Battle of the Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night, 1882

Alphonse Alle
"The first communion of anemic girls in the snowy season", 1883 (so this picture looked in 1897).

It was there, in the Vivien Gallery, during the exhibitions of "Unbound Art" (fr. "les Arts Incohérents") he exhibited his famous monochrome paintings for the first time. The first in a series of artistic discoveries by Alphonse Allais was the completely black and almost square canvas “Battle of the Negroes in a Cave in the Dead of Night” (1882), originally exhibited in a gilded frame by his temporary drinking companion and colleague, humorist writer, author of vaudeville, Paul Billot. Not resting on the success achieved, a year later (at the second exhibition of the "Unbound Arts"), Allais exhibited a virgin white sheet of Bristol paper called "The first communion of chlorotic-pale girls in the snowy season" (1883). :p.XXI A year later, another painting by Alphonse Allais was perceived as a kind of "coloristic explosion." The rectangular landscape "Harvesting tomatoes on the shores of the Red Sea by apoplectic cardinals" was a bright red one-color painting without the slightest sign of an image (1884).

"The true pinnacle of portrait art: when you can easily sit down and shave in front of your own image". :32

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Thus, thirty years before the Suprematist revelations of Kazimir Malevich, the venerable artist Alphonse Allais became the "unknown author" of the first abstract paintings. The white rectangle on a white background and the black square on a black background can also be seen as a clear anticipation of constructivism and conceptualism. :33 Perhaps the only difference between Alphonse Allais and his followers was that he, exhibiting his stunningly innovative work, did not at all try to look like a meaningful philosopher or a serious discoverer. This, perhaps, was the reason for the lack of professional recognition of his contribution to the history of art. With his works in the field of painting, Alphonse Allais very accurately explained the old thesis: “It is not so important what you do, it is much more important - How you deliver it."

“A hungry belly has no ears, but it has a wonderful scent”.

- (Alphonse Allais, "Things")

Nevertheless, the three "squares" of Alphonse Allais certainly found their grateful audience. By the way, one of them turned out to be the same Eric Satie, twenty years later he himself wrote the first conceptual and constructivist works, though not paintings, but in the field of literature and music.

“Here is my little dedication to Uncle Alphonse Alla. I like this text. It would rightfully belong to his hand. Exactly twenty years before this thing, uncle published his marvelous work. It was called "The First Communion of frozen maidens, chlorinated with white snow". I sadly think that, due to his white death, he never read my white article with his white eyes ... "

Musical biography

Eric Satie, self-portrait 1913

Thanks to a plumber named Vital Oke (Fr. Vital Hocquet), in his spare time writing poetry under the pseudonym Narcisse Lebo (fr. Narcisse Lebeau) a young composer, author of strange plays called "Gymnopedia" and "Gnossien" Eric Satie was recommended to join the privileged cabaret club "Black Cat". And thanks to the same plumber, apparently, such a minimalist composer is known today as Alphonse Allais. Years of friendship and joint work in several magazines and rare trips together on a visit to Honfleur apparently influenced not only Eric Satie himself, a person who is extremely independent and not subject to influences. :34 From all indications, it was Eric Satie who brought the ever-eccentric Alphonse Allais to music. Until that moment, he did not feel in himself a "composer" and his musical genius was dormant.

Awakened by the no less original and eccentric work of Eric Satie, after nine years of friendly communication, Alphonse Allais decided to also make his historical contribution to the art of music. In 1897 he re-composed, "performed" and published in special album Ollendorf publishing house "Funeral march for the funeral of the great deaf", which, however, did not contain a single note. Only coffin silence, as a sign of respect for death and understanding of the important principle that great sorrows are dumb. They do not tolerate any fuss or unnecessary sounds. It goes without saying that the score of this march was a blank sheet of music paper, borrowed by Erik Satie for a single performance of Alphonse's masterpiece.

So, fifty-five years before the play “4′33″” by John Cage and almost half a century before the dying silence of Erwin Schulhoff, Alphonse Allais was the author if not the first, then the second minimalist musical composition - exactly. :35 The point here is that the first example of a minimalist play was created by Eric Satie four years earlier, in April 1893. Being in a state of great annoyance with his obstinate mistress, Suzanne Valadon, Satie composed the play “The Troubles” (fr. "Vexations"). At the end of the piece, there was an author's instruction, according to which the pianist was to play this piece. "840 times in a row, at will, but no more". However, Eric Satie didn’t think of a few minutes of heartfelt silence as a mourning symphony “for the dead deaf”, and the priority of inventing the silent direction of minimalism went to another native of Honfleur, who had no musical education at all.

Erik Satie and Alphonse Allais are two of the first, premature and uncrowned minimalists in art history. One, who created in the form of his "Troubles" and "Furniture Music" the rehearsal direction of minimalism seventy years before its appearance, and the other, almost at the same time, invented Cage's "silentism" in the form of a silent joke on the death of the great deaf. :36

These two names are rarely linked together today. However, contemporaries clearly understood that these two authors, writer and composer, poet and playwright, painter and graphic artist, are next to each other. By the will of fate, Eric Satie, who was twelve years younger, outlived Alphonse Allais by exactly twenty years. But until the very end of his life, Eric Satie often continued to be called “Alphonse Alle of Music” (more often in a negative sense, wanting to somehow scold or belittle). And even in 1924, sending Sati “in retirement” and wanting to “reasonably” insult him, the composer Georges Auric, a very young man who never knew Alphonse Allais, wrote in a literary chronicle:

“Open your eyes! It's just a Norman notary, a suburban pharmacist, citizen Satie of the Council of Arceuil, an old friend of Alphonse Allais and the cantor of the Rose and the Cross.

And perhaps the greatest contribution of Alphonse Allais to musical history can be considered not his mourning march of silence, but Erik Satie himself, the “Alphonse Allais of music”, the same Alphonse Allais, who was the “Eric Satie” of literature. :37 Although Satie himself wrote brilliant stories, essays and plays, as well as Alphonse Allais, and painted hundreds of graphic and calligraphic paintings, he was also a musician, just like Allais, and a native of the same Honfleur (Calvados, Normandy), "where it was sometimes ridiculously hot ... for such a small town."

Publications

Alphonse Allais (35 years old), photo from the book

• In 2013, the publishing house "Center Middle Music” and Faces of Russia, St. Petersburg, a book was published: Yuri Khanon, “Alphonse, who was not”. This first book Alla and about Alla in Russian. It includes two of the most famous collections of short stories by Alphonse Allais: “We are not beef”, “Twice two is almost five”, as well as the microcollection “Three shoes” and two large prefaces: “The Alphonse who was” and “The Alphonse who was not”. The Russian text of the book was completely compiled by Yuri Khanon.

“…In this book…, I repeat, I put everything into this book…,
... everything that I have known so far about stupidity and
about stupidity ..., I repeat, about stupidity and stupidity ...,
your stupidity ..., madam, monsieur ... and even mademoiselle.

And I would ask everyone else not to worry.
Because it's too late to worry. :5

- (Yuri Khanon, epigraph from the book "Alphonse Who Was Not")

The book "Alphonse who was not" was the first, but by no means the last in the Russian heritage of Alphonse Allais. The same tandem of authors, (although with varying degrees of participation of Alphonse Alle) owns several more books published in numbered editions at the Center for Middle Music, among which are: Three Invalid (St. Petersburg, 2011), Khanon Parade Alle" (2011), as well as "Two Trials", "We are not pork", "Do not be hysterical" and, perhaps, the main work "Black Alleys", containing 160 selectively hard and cruel black stories and 200 philosophical essay - as if the absurd human world in the edition of Alphonse Allais appeared with detailed comments Friedrich Nietzsche.